Bazball 2024

[Rabish Binney]

England let their fielding coach Paul Collingwood go before the Ashes series due to 'logistical and financial issues'. What the hell is that? Surely the ECB can afford a fielding coach?

Well that backfired on them didn't it?

They've also go issues with Brook who IMHO seems to becoming the biggest FIGJAM in world cricket now. The issues in NZ before the series and throwing his wicket away (not the first time) in 2nd innings of the Adelaide test when he and Crawley were batting well, subsequently England lose the test. 'It's just the way Harry plays' apparently

He is on record as 'he doesn't do team meetings'. What kind of attitude is this? He is their vice captain. What about the younger guys? 'Harry says we don't need them'. Why would McCullum allow this attitude to happen?

They also pick a 2nd rate keeper over Foakes (they both play for Sussex and Smith doesn't even keep for the county). Didn't learn their lesson from Bairstow's ordinary keeping?

It seems to me that there is an attitude of 'she'll be right' with McCullum which was shown up big time in the series.

 

[Art Vandelay_]

Pretty much. Hot start then the fad got figured out and there's diminishing returns against the non-minnows.

The volume of cricket people in England and abroad speaking out about McCullum and Co. disinterest in county cricket is alarming and shows the disrespect they ha e for the system.

 

[scott2clarkson]

Ha! Reckon the Bazball fad has past it's use by date to be fair with you.

England actually have to learn to blood some more talented kids. Get rid of the old farts in the team and play the father sons.
Michael Vaughan's son Archie can play a bit as can Andrew Flintoff's son Rocky can play as well.

 

[010203]

Marcus North is expected to be England's new selector replacing Luke Wright who walked away from the role after this year's T20 'World Cup'.

 

[western royboy]

Marcus North is expected to be England's new selector replacing Luke Wright who walked away from the role after this year's T20 'World Cup'.

It’s a good appointment he was a very astute player who hung in their long enough domestically and then hit his chance - he will hopefully (for them) provide a lens that they have been lacking in terms of county knowledge

 

[Rabish Binney]

It’s a good appointment he was a very astute player who hung in their long enough domestically and then hit his chance - he will hopefully (for them) provide a lens that they have been lacking in terms of county knowledge

Agree.

he will bring some common-sense to the role.

 

[010203]

Will the hollier than thou hypocrites listen to Marcus North?

 

[Art Vandelay_]

The worst exponent of Bazball now boned. Bye Bye Crawley.

 

[Snarls Barkley]

Out: Crawley, Pope, Jacks, Potts (dropped), Archer, Carse, Wood (unavailable)
In: Gay, Rew, Ahmed, Fisher*, Baker, Robinson

No real substantial changes, definitely no statement changes. Pope had already been replaced by Bethell. Crawley was no chance of surviving and rightfully replaced, was their third leading runscorer in the Ashes though. Main changes are that none of their pace bowlers are available

Hilarious that the Bashir experiment continues. Played him through years of absolutely tripe to prepare him for the tour of Australia and then got stage fright at the last moment. Guess they’ve got to give him another three years to get him ready

 

[PhatBoy]

Out: Crawley, Pope, Jacks, Potts (dropped), Archer, Carse, Wood (unavailable)
In: Gay, Rew, Ahmed, Fisher*, Baker, Robinson

No real substantial changes, definitely no statement changes. Pope had already been replaced by Bethell. Crawley was no chance of surviving and rightfully replaced, was their third leading runscorer in the Ashes though. Main changes are that none of their pace bowlers are available

Hilarious that the Bashir experiment continues. Played him through years of absolutely tripe to prepare him for the tour of Australia and then got stage fright at the last moment. Guess they’ve got to give him another three years to get him ready

Unbelievable that Bashir is still there

Some REAL ardent supporters of Crawley I guess if there are any might point to him being their third leading run scorer in the Ashes but the fact is that that’s as high in their charts as his output will ever take him. Can anyone ever see him, beyond the odd series where he pulls one huge score out of his backside (ie. the double against Pakistan, the 180 against Australia), being the leading run scorer? It’s just not going to happen.

They got as much out of that lemon as they could - a handful of match changing innings with nothing else substantial. It will be interesting to see if his replacement plays with aggression alongside Duckett.

 

[Snarls Barkley]

Unbelievable that Bashir is still there

Some REAL ardent supporters of Crawley I guess if there are any might point to him being their third leading run scorer in the Ashes but the fact is that that’s as high in their charts as his output will ever take him. Can anyone ever see him, beyond the odd series where he pulls one huge score out of his backside (ie. the double against Pakistan, the 180 against Australia), being the leading run scorer? It’s just not going to happen.

They got as much out of that lemon as they could - a handful of match changing innings with nothing else substantial. It will be interesting to see if his replacement plays with aggression alongside Duckett.

Oh that comment wasn't in support of Crawley, bloke shouldn't have been playing for years. Just that some high profile guys had that bad of tours that Crawley somehow outscored them but are a walk up start again without any pressure on their position

 

[PhatBoy]

Oh that comment wasn't in support of Crawley, bloke shouldn't have been playing for years. Just that some high profile guys had that bad of tours that Crawley somehow outscored them but are a walk up start again without any pressure on their position

No I didn’t take it that way. I find it hilarious that England being a perennial whipping boy (it does happen to Australia too in certain sections of media and fandom), someone only has to have one bad series and they need to be moved on from; I saw an England fan a few days ago say Brook should be dropped. His ‘bad series’ saw him average 40, even if he DID play some bad shots.

Duckett had a horrendous series but he averaged 40 in 2025 and has gone back to county cricket and is averaging 80 so far I think with a double and 3 50s.

Pope and Crawley needed to be jettisoned and rightly have been but there’s no point dropping everyone because of one series as has been suggested in certain quarters

 

[Snarls Barkley]

Pope and Crawley probably averaged 40 last year to be fair. They all beefed up their numbers on the flattest pitches seen during their home summer and then were useless here. I would read very little about the calendar batting numbers

You probably see it differently but Smith shouldn't have been selected. I don't care how well he started his career but that Ashes was the most braindead batting I've seen from a talented player. It shouldn't be a Martyn style multi year exclusion but he is still young enough to learn his lessons and think dropping him for a game or series would do wonders for him

 

[PhatBoy]

Pope and Crawley probably averaged 40 last year to be fair. They all beefed up their numbers on the flattest pitches seen during their home summer and then were useless here. I would read very little about the calendar batting numbers

You probably see it differently but Smith shouldn't have been selected. I don't care how well he started his career but that Ashes was the most braindead batting I've seen from a talented player. It shouldn't be a Martyn style multi year exclusion but he is still young enough to learn his lessons and think dropping him for a game or series would do wonders for him

I agree to an extent that some sort of remediation wouldn’t hurt BUT:
You don’t need to be dropped to learn a lesson. The public humiliation of the extensive criticism he’s copped is more than enough. Players (mostly) aren’t stupid.

When you play a dumb shot, what is the lesson you have to learn? Not to play the dumb shot. You can learn that by being told not to play it, and simply accepting ‘you know what, I need to pull my head in a bit and accept that I was a bit reckless.’ You don’t need to be sat in the corner like a bad boy especially if it’s going to be to the detriment of the team. He’s got more credits in the bank than Smith quite obviously but India aren’t going to help themselves last year if they spear Pant for his brain melt in Melbourne. England have made a clear decision that they are not going to pick a specialist ‘keeper’ as such - and they aren’t alone in doing that - few teams do it anymore. So their directive is clear: they want to pick the best keeper-batsman they can who is a batter as much as he is a keeper. Which leaves them looking at James Rew or Jamie Smith. Or possibly both if they ever went with something like:
Gay
Duckett
Bethel
Root
Brook
Smith
Rew
Stokes
Robinson
Atkinson
Tongue

Though I don’t think they’d back Stokes to be a proper fourth bowler or Root/Bethel to be a spinner.

I don’t believe it serves a purpose to punish someone for a shit shot if they know they’ve done it. Even the one in Adelaide, I don’t think was THAT bad. It was in keeping with what he’d been doing to get to 60-odd up to a point. The one in Sydney was horrific, and he was rightly smashed for it. He’s an adult, a prolific cricketer, and he’d know he did wrong. They aren’t immune to noise and he’d have seen the big screen as soon as he did it and had a ‘what did I just do’ moment.

On the other side of that, batsmen who have continually failed (or bowlers for that matter) over a decent enough period, THEY are the ones you drop because they have to show they’ve worked on the things keeping them in that loop of failure. A bad decision to play a brain-fade shot isn’t that. Continually nicking off or failing for low scores, that’s what you drop people for.
England have probably killed any chance Crawley - who actually DOES have some ability - ever had of fulfilling that talent, by continually picking him because he’s not had to go and fix those issues after 2-3 poor series in a row.

As for Duckett: yeah he might have averaged 40 in a year with tests played on good pitches. So it’s worth noting that he didn’t just average 40 on the good pitches - he cashed in and averaged over 50. Then he came to Australia and in 3 relatively difficult assignments (I would have said Adelaide was a bit easier) against a good attack he fell down. I don’t think he covered himself in glory all told for the year but again you don’t ditch someone for one bad series when they only have to say ‘well five matches before that I made nearly 500 against Bumrah and Siraj opening the batting even if it was in fairly good conditions.’

 

[010203]

Not worthy of a new thread (although I'm happy for a moderator to create one if they see fit), but Darren Gough has an implicit message for the Bazballers.

 

[PhatBoy]

Not worthy of a new thread (although I'm happy for a moderator to create one if they see fit), but Darren Gough has an implicit message for the Bazballers.

That’s well and good if you have Steve smith and a few other batsmen good enough to execute it.
But the reality is that’s not really why Australia has been number one most of the last 6 years. It’s been because of the bowlers. In the few occasions when it has been on the back of the batting, it’s been on the back of Smith to an extent who when he has made runs has still done it his way which is at his own tempo and approach and that’s fair enough because he’s literally in the top 3 batsmen Australia has ever produced.
When Australia wins on the back of Travis Head it’s not because he digs in for 15 overs and goes again, is it. It’s because he pretty much has a quick look and then then just goes at it.
Even Alex Carey most of the time has done his best work just playing fairly aggressively and counter-attackingly.

Khawaja at his peak was decent enough to stick in for decent periods obviously and he won them a test in England batting extremely carefully and as I said Smith almost always judged the tempo to suit both himself and the situation.

But the modern Australian teams don’t thrive on that - at least not to a level where you could say it’s a ‘strength.’

Actually the one series where I would say it worked oddly enough was in the West Indies. They got themselves in strife in virtually every innings, and a few players whether it was Head/Green/Carey would dig in a bit and then start to counter a little.

Gough gives pretty un-analytical takes as a general rule.

 

[philreich]

LOL Stuart Broad reckons that if Ollie Robinson had played on Boxing Day, he would have rolled the Aussies for 30.

 

[Adelaide Hawk]

LOL Stuart Broad reckons that if Ollie Robinson had played on Boxing Day, he would have rolled the Aussies for 30.

They continue to live in their own little fantasy world. The way they over-rate their players is remarkable.

 

[Adelaide Hawk]

Not worthy of a new thread (although I'm happy for a moderator to create one if they see fit), but Darren Gough has an implicit message for the Bazballers.

Always loved Goughy, he played the game in the correct spirit.

 

[Gough]

Broad showed a bit as a commentator I thought, he should leave the clowning to Glenn McGrath.

 

[philreich]

They continue to live in their own little fantasy world. The way they over-rate their players is remarkable.

Agreed. It makes me smile to think that Bangladesh is currently above both England and India in the Test rankings (which also tells me that Bangladesh won't be easybeats when they come here in August).

That said, the Poms will be bloody tough to beat over there next year.

 

[PhatBoy]

Agreed. It makes me smile to think that Bangladesh is currently above both England and India in the Test rankings (which also tells me that Bangladesh won't be easybeats when they come here in August).

That said, the Poms will be bloody tough to beat over there next year.

Well no, they aren’t. They are above them in the WTC ladder. Two very different things.

They are miles behind both England and India in the best rankings.